Effects of hospital-community integrated transitional care on quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Abstract

To explore the effects of "hospital-community integrated transitional care" model on quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A total of 117 inpatients with COPD from the Department of Respiratory Medicine in a tertiary general hospital in Nanjing were enrolled by convenience sampling from January to December in 2016 and then were divided into intervention group (n = 60) and control group (n = 57) by random number table. Patients in the intervention group accepted both routine care and hospital-community integrated transitional care for 3 months after discharge. Assessment of quality of life by telephone follow-up or interview within a week before discharge and 1, 3, and 6 months after discharge was evaluated using the Short Form-36 (SF-36) health survey questionnaire. For a total score of quality of life, there was a significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.05): 1, 3, and 6 months after discharge. In addition, for each dimension score of quality of life, there were no significant differences (P > 0.05) except vitality dimension, 1 month after discharge, and there were significant differences in all dimensions, 3 and 6 months after discharge (P < 0.05) Hospital-community integrated transitional care model can improve the quality of life of patients with COPD.